Thursday, January 12, 2006

Speech impediment

I was watching a cooking segment on some talk show today and remembered just how much I hate it when people use the words "actually" and "literally". I'm guessing that how-to people on tv get paid for every one that they utter, "... then you actually just stir in the rice blah, blah ...", "you literally paint the wall purple and then you're done", ick! They bloat up a perfectly good sentence. I've been trying to listen to myself lately to discover what annoying speech ticks I have. I use "you know" wayyyyy too much, and I also say "so" a lot, probably because usually I'm halfway through a sentence and I forget what the heck I was saying. I may have conquered "like" and "um", although I'm not positive. It's embarrassing to realise that you sound like that annoying 13-year old you heard on the bus talking on her cell phone. When did this happen? I'm sure I used to speak like an adult. What I need is a device that whacks me in the back of the head when I screw up. Any ideas?

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